Eight Screws and a Plate

 Huh....didn't realize that could describe a weekend in Vegas.....

SLW got home from surgery about 1130 this morning, rather woozy and doozy, and with another bottle of Percocet. They gave her a nerve block for the surgery, and some "Twilight Sleep" stuff so she'd be out for the procedure, which only took a couple of hours.

And they gave her this lovely parting gift to remember her experience by.

They told her during the consultation last week she'd need "A couple of screws and a plate", but, uh....looks like more than just "a couple" to me. I count eight, but I'm not an Orthopedic guy.

So I'm hustling around at her beck and call, and she's complaining that she can't feel any of her arm, so it flops around, and can fall out of the sling if she isn't careful.

Probably be busy the next couple of days.....

New Antenna for FM Radio

 I've had this FM Radio Halo Antenna for a couple of years, and had it hanging in the garage for my "Shop Radio". I didn't think it worked very well, so I used a vertical whip on a magnetic mount. 

I had some whips, NMO coils, and a magnetic mount "in stock and on hand", so I picked a combination that would work acceptably for the frequency range of 88MHz to 108MHz.

You've seen these before, I'm sure. That's it, the black rectangular thing (the mag mount base) next to the coil of wire, with a grey cone and a whip on it.

That was OK, but I decided to make a "folded dipole" antenna and try that. The dipole has some broadside "gain", which allows me to receive the weaker stations to the South down by Denver compared to the vertical.

This is a *very* simple antenna to make; just some wire, and a little 300 Ohm to 75 Ohm "balun" transformer to convert the 300 Ohm BALanced impedance of a folded dipole to the 75 Ohm UNbalanced coax input of the radio.

Took about 45 minutes to measure and cut the wire, solder on the balun, make and install the coax, and staple it to the drywall.

This works much better than either the halo antenna or the whip antenna, in this situation, and now the stations to the South come in stronger, and the receiver locks on the stereo signal better than it did before.

But I still had this halo antenna for the FM band, and a coax going through the foundation into the basement workshop.

Sooooo....needing a better antenna for the nice FM stereo in the basement, I dug the halo out of storage, and addressed the shortcomings it had for outdoor use here. I took it apart, cleaned all the areas that got bolted together with ScotchBrite and alcohol, then reassembled it with some Jet Lube copper-based anti-seize compound. Then I made a bracket for it out of some aluminum angle, cleaned all the parts again, assembled it all, and shot it with a coat of self-etching primer. After that cured, I painted it with some of the Rust-Oleum "Truck Bed Liner" paint I had, and put it in the sun to bake. The Jet Lube will stop any oxidization, and the heavy coat of the bed liner should seal the connections from moisture.

So here it is, hanging on my mount from the eaves.

And you cab barely see it from the street, so SLW won't squawk too loudly.

The messy coax install will be cleaned up as soon as I find my "Coax Nails" in the correct size.

I have ones for larger coax, but can't find my box of RG-6 size ones. 

And yes, I saw them last week while rummaging around for something else. Next time I see them, they'll get put with all the other 75 Ohm coax stuff I have.

So how does it work? Wellllll.....pretty "meh" to the South as it's on the North side of the house, below the roofline. Some of the stations I received before in the basement on the whip are weaker with this antenna, which I thought might be the case. Stations to the North come in stronger, but there's not much out that way that isn't "local", so it's a net loss of coverage.

I may wind up fabricating one of my favorite antennas for the FM Band, a simple quarter-wave vertical. I'd build an FM Band Lindenblad, but SLW might not be too happy with that.....

 

 

 

Hectic Two Days

 Well.....SLW was in Austin visiting a friend, did a trip-and-fall at a venue they were at on Sunday, and wound up in the ER with two broken bones at her arm/wrist junction. The Doctors in the ER took X-Rays, pronounced she had two broken bones, and then splinted it, wrapped it, gave her a few painkillers and an Rx for some additional ones, and sent her on her way.

She toughed it out Sunday night and Monday, but changed her flight to the earliest one she could get on Tuesday. Every bump, jiggle, and bounce on the ride back made her wince, and she cried in pain a couple of times, as the few pills she was able to get from the pharmacy wore off.

We spent most of  today at the Orthopedic Clinic, getting more detailed X-Rays, and some consultation. She's going in Monday morning for surgery to realign things, and install a plate and two screws to hold things in position while the bones knit back together. It's outpatient surgery, and she'll be home in the afternoon. I never thought I'd ever hear her say "Thank GOD for Percocet", but then I've never seen her in that kind of pain.

Son had two days of orientation and training at his new company's place in Denver, and he was out in the field today, all day. He'll be working out of Greeley, and today they were down by Fort Lupton on Weld 19 flagging for a company upgrading the electric service to the area. Tomorrow they'll be in Broomfield doing the flagging for a repaving job off 287. So far he likes it (one day?), and he's getting the same pay as he was making in Lost Angeleez, with about 1/10th the stress, so he thinks it's a good trade.....so far!

The Little Guy with the New Little Guy

 Sweet Little Wife sent this. She's been babysitting both of them while The Kids are at work.

Maybe there's some hope for the future after all.....

Have a blessed Sunday!

Space Weather for the Weekend

 And it looks like cycle 25 is off and running.

The forecast from Dr. Skov is below:

Yeah, she can be 'over the top' a bit, but she's got gen-you-ine creds and degrees and she knows her stuff.

Solar Flux should be in the low 90's for the weekend, with some good band openings.

I've noticed more Ionospheric Sounders in operation on the 20 Meter (14MHz) band than usual, and I've even see a few on the 40 Meter (7MHz) band.

I've been hearing Danie, ZS3D, in South Africa on 40 Meters on a regular basis, and that's getting me fired up to put my big 33' vertical back up. It's a full quarter-wave on 7MHz, and with the elevated radials, works extremely well.

Saturday Night Music

 One of my favorite songs, from one of my favorite bands, featuring one of my favorite guitar players.

It was also written specifically for one of my favorite TV shows, Miami Vice.

Hope you're having a great weekend. Really getting to be Fall here, with temps dropping into the low 40's at night.

Dead Juniper Removal - Part Deux

 Removing the dead junipers in the back yard came to a screeching halt earlier this year when my shoulder went on strike. I had some kind of big "knot" in the muscle that you could feel moving around when I moved my arm around. My Doctor ordered an ultrasound, which came back negative, the findings being "No Solid or Cystic Mass Found". 

Sooooo....off to Physical Therapy for 8 weeks, during which time the "knot" got smaller and less painful. It's still there, but not nearly as annoying as it was.

I still can't do a lot of the yard work I started off doing early this year, even if I take it pretty easy. I'm still having issues with getting lightheaded at times (hah....what's new, eh?), and my BP bounces around a lot, with the "Irregular Heartbeat" icon popping up almost every time I measure my BP. I have an appointment with my Cardiologist next month, and we'll see what he makes of the readings from the "ZIO Patch" I wore for two weeks.

ANYWAY.....now that my son is here, he's been helping out a lot with these things, and today he and SLW went bonkers on the junipers in the back yard.

They cleared out all the dead stuff back in Pebbles' "forest":

And then attacked the dead grove of them out on "The Point":

Sorry the pix are kinda blown-out. I'm so used to popping up the little flash on the camera, I did it out of habit, making the camera switch exposure modes.

I'll help with the raking up, and feed the apple tree in the background, later today when it cools down. I can't do too much more than light work when it's over 90*, so this is part of my "Taking It Easy" when I'm doing yard work, and it's also put a major crimp in working on the Toyota....

9-11 And I Feel "Empty".....

 That's about the only way I can describe it. All the blood, treasure, and broken lives served no purpose, other than to enrich some, and destroy others.

But they weren't the "others" we set out to destroy.

I'm greatly saddened by the astoundingly poor judgement shown in the recent "withdrawal" from the 'Stan. Grade school kids could have done better with minimal coaching. How do you even categorize this? "Withdrawal" is too nice a word, and so is even "Retreat". To "retreat" at least implies and orderliness to it. I don't even know if there's a single word that describes what happened. "Abandonment" is about all I can come up with. "Wanton and Willful Abandonment" doesn't even sound strong enough to describe the cowardly actions that took place.

Anyway.....we went to the Rist Canyon Mountain Festival today, a benefit for the Rist Canyon Volunteer Fire Department. It was great to see all the people there, without masks, enjoying the sunshine, music, food, and demonstrations put on by the RCVFD, Larimer County Sheriff, and the UC Health Lifeline helicopter crews. BTW, Helicopter N68RX is one of the choppers I see flying over regularly.

And a little girl did a bang-on rendition of our National Anthem. The canyon got quiet, she sang her little heart out, and there wasn't a hat on a head, or a dry eye.

When we returned home, we had the neighborhood block party to attend, and catch up with neighbors we hadn't seen in a while. SLW was marveling at the fact that NO permits, permissions, or regulations were required. They just coned off the street, set up the BBQ and some tables, and everybody brought a side dish.

A splendid time was had by all, and we're looking forward to TLG being here Sunday/Monday, as usual. His new little brother came home from the hospital after 80 days, and is doing extremely well. From the rate he's growing and gaining weight, I have a hunch he's gonna be a bruiser!

So life goes on, for now, and I hope you have a blessed Sunday.

Another Interesting Flight Path, But At Night This Time.

 I suppose with all the "Multi-Spectral" sensors out there these days, it doesn't matter much what time of day you do your mapping flights.

This is the first time I've seen one after sundown, though,

I Gots Nuttin'....

 Quiet week....

Took my son to the airport Tuesday, and he headed back to Lost Angeleez to get the rest of his stuff. He'll stay in St. George tonight, and then head up through Salt Lake, and East to Cheyenne, and South to here.

SLW came back last Sunday from a trip to see some friends in Oklahoma, which made two trips to DIA this week. Oh well, at least a good highway run helps keep my engine oil cleaner than just putting around town.

And I have a whole stack of things I dragged up from the basement so I can take pix of them, and list them on eBay. Been cleaning out Der Boonker, and found a lot of stuff I'll never use, lost interest in, or had had doubles/triples of, so that stuff's going out, too.

I really don't need seven scanners here in NoCo, where one is sufficient. And I'll be thinning back the Heathkit Herd shortly, too. It was fun having the stuff for "Show and Tell" back in SoCal, but the Ham Community is completely different here, and I haven't found more than a couple of people I share interests with. I really don't need five Heathkit Shortwave receivers, either.

I finished getting the SB-401 transmitter back together, tested, and aligned, so that one and the matching SB-301 receiver will go on the block, too. That pair was an impulse buy one night, and while it was fun to rebuild them, using them on-the-air isn't a "1969 Time Machine", but then I suspected that. A 50 year old single-conversion receiver with fixed selectivity gives the results I expected. Fun to play with and use casually, but a bit lacking when the going gets tough.

Have a good three-day weekend, and you can put away the white belt and shoes now....

Oh, No......Tear It Apart Again?

 WELL.......seems I miscalculated a bit when it came to measuring the the rack space I had for the new(er) TEAC A-4300SX tape deck.

It was a bit over 1/8" too tall to fit into the available space, so everything came off the shelf above, and I raised it about 2".

Now it even has enough room for an even bigger deck, with 10.5" reels, should I so desire.

 And since the Pioneer receiver had never been given a proper cleaning since I bought it, I dove into that.

Think I can handle this?

 

It was  more than a bit grungy inside:

 

 

I'm amazed at the amount of dirt all over this tuning capacitor:

 

And in other places:

Very clean under the bottom plate:

And I pulled the front panel off, as there was a motley collection of "dirt" on the dial and the backside of the glass, which just drove me NUTZ.

It took about 30 minutes with the shop vacuum and a soft bristled brush to knock all the splooge off the internals and vacuum it out, and another half hour or so to clean the dial assembly. Then I spent an hour or so cleaning the aluminum front panel, and another hour cleaning and buffing the knobs.

All back together and shiny again:

And here's the finished (for now...) rack, all back together (for now...) and playing beautifully.

Hope y'all have a great weekend. I have to shuttle down to DIA to pick up SLW who was visiting a friend for the last week. Spent a lot of good "Garage Time" with my son just hanging out and discussing Guy Stuff.